Marieluise Beck

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Marieluise Beck
The Greens in the Bundestag
In office
29 March 1983 – 3 April 1984
Serving with Otto Schily and Petra Kelly
Chief WhipJoschka Fischer
Preceded byOffice established
Succeeded byAnnemarie Borgmann
Member of the Bundestag
for Baden-Württemberg
In office
6 March 1983 – 14 April 1985
ConstituencyThe Greens List
Personal details
Born (1952-06-25) 25 June 1952 (age 71)
Alliance '90/The Greens
SpouseRalf Fücks
ChildrenTwo
Alma mater
OccupationPolitician
ProfessionTeacher
Websitemarieluisebeck.de

Marieluise Beck (born 25 June 1952) is a German

Alliance '90/The Greens group in the Bundestag until 2017. She was also a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe
.

Education

Beck studied history and sociology in

Heidelberg.[1] Beck also studied in the United States as a Youth for Understanding exchange student in 1967–1968. She is a 1968 graduate of Quincy High School (Quincy, Michigan
).

Political career

Early political activities

Beck was among the founding members of the German Green party,

Alliance '90/The Greens. In 1983 she was elected to the German Bundestag and in the first electoral term in which the Greens were represented in Parliament she was one of the spokespersons of the parliamentary group, together with Petra Kelly and Otto Schily. That year, Beck went on a trip to Washington, D.C., with Kelly and Gert Bastian to discuss the NATO Double-Track Decision.[2]

In 1984, along with Kelly and Schily, she withdrew her candidacy for the party's parliamentary leadership when a majority of the party's legislators nominated an all-female slate headed by Antje Vollmer in an unexpected move.[3] She again served as a Member of the German Bundestag in the following electoral term from 1987 to 1990. After serving as a member of the Parliament of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen from 1991 to 1994, Beck was re-elected to the German Bundestag and has been a Member ever since.[1]

Member of the German government

Under chancellor

headscarf ban for Muslim teachers, convening politicians from across the party spectrum, scientists and leaders from the church and media, including Rita Süssmuth, Renate Künast, Claudia Roth, Katja Riemann and Renan Demirkan.[4]

Activities in foreign policy and human rights

Marieluise Beck

Since 2005, Beck has been member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs at the German parliament, where she focuses as the spokesperson on Eastern European affairs for the Green Party's parliamentary group on matters concerning Russia, Belarus and Western Balkan countries. She serves as the chairperson of the German-Bosnian Parliamentary Friendship Group and as a member of the German-Ukrainian and German-South Caucasus Parliamentary Friendship Groups.[1]

Between 2005 and 2009, Beck also served as a member of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly and as Deputy chairwoman of the German-Belarusian Parliamentary Friendship Group. In April 2010, she spent one week in several cities of Afghanistan to visit German military and aid activities.[5] Later that year, she and fellow Putin critic Andreas Schockenhoff accompanied German President Christian Wulff on a state visit to Russia.[6]

In 2012, Beck became a member of the German delegation to the

Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky’s release[8] and was once described by news magazine Der Spiegel as "a woman despised by the Kremlin."[9]

In September 2012, Belarus denied visas for Beck and fellow parliamentarian Emanuelis Zingeris, who both planned to monitor the parliamentary elections as part of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly mission.[10] As a consequence Andrej Hiro, the Belarusian ambassador to Germany, was summoned to the Federal Foreign Office and told that the German government did not understand the reason for the visa denials. In a reaction, Beck said that "Dictator Lukashenka is not even trying to keep up appearances of free and fair elections if he locks journalists and observers out."[10]

In October 2014, Beck joined a 36-member delegation of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, led by British MP Christopher Chope, to observe the conduct of the early parliamentary elections in Ukraine.[11] Ahead of the Belarusian presidential election in 2015, she was part of a pre-electoral delegation led by Turkish MP Reha Denemeç to assess the preparations of the vote, including the procedure of collecting signatures for registration of presidential candidates.[12]

In September 2015, amid the

European migrant crisis, Beck joined Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel on a trip to the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan to learn more about the plight of Syrians fleeing the violence in the ongoing Syrian civil war that erupted in 2011.[13]

In August 2016, Beck announced that she would not stand in the 2017 federal elections but instead resign from active politics by the end of the parliamentary term.[14]

Life after politics

In 2017, Beck co-founded the Zentrum Liberale Moderne, a think-tank focusing on defending the open society and liberal democracy against anti-liberal revolt in Germany, European Union and abroad.[15] Former President of Germany Joachim Gauck spoke at the opening of Zentrum.[16]

Since 2018, Beck has been a member of the so-called Limbach Commission (Advisory Commission on the return of cultural property seized as a result of Nazi persecution, especially Jewish property), a panel convened by the German government to give recommendations on restitution claims regarding art works stolen or purchased under duress by the Nazis.[17]

Other activities[18]

Recognition

Personal life

Beck is married to fellow Green politician Ralf Fücks, the former chairman of the Heinrich Böll Foundation. She lives in Bremen.[20]

References

  1. ^ a b c Marieluise Beck, Member of the German Bundestag Heinrich Böll Foundation, Washington, D.C.
  2. ^ Breiter Graben "Der Spiegel", 11 July 1983.
  3. New York Times
    , 5 April 1984.
  4. ^ Headscarf Issue Rears its Head Again Deutsche Welle, 2 December 2003.
  5. ^ Klaus Wolschner (21 April 2010), Unterwegs in Afghanistan "Die Tageszeitung".
  6. ^ Daniel Sturm (9 October 2010), Staatsbesuch: Wulff reist nach Russland "Die Welt".
  7. ^ Marieluise Beck: "Putin is president of a managed democracy - the voters had no choice" Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party.
  8. New York Times
    .
  9. Spiegel Online
    .
  10. ^ a b Elections in Belarus: statement by Andres Herkel, PACE rapporteur on the situation in Belarus Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, press release of 24 September 2012.
  11. ^ PACE to observe the early parliamentary elections in Ukraine Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, press release of 21 October 2014.
  12. ^ Belarus: statement by the PACE pre-electoral delegation Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, press release of 9 September 2015.
  13. Tagesschau
    .
  14. ^ Richard Herzinger (12 August 2016), Marieluise Beck weicht dem grünen Zwergenaufstand Die Welt.
  15. ^ Tobias Schulze (16 November 2017), Grüne Ex-Politiker gründen Think-Tank: Transatlantischer Ruhestand Die Tageszeitung.
  16. ^ [Christoph vomn Marschall (29 November 2018), Ein Jahr Zentrum Liberale Moderne in Berlin
  17. ^ Members Advisory Commission on the return of cultural property seized as a result of Nazi persecution, especially Jewish property.
  18. ^ "Marieluise Beck beim Petersburger Dialog | Marieluise Beck". marieluisebeck.de. Retrieved 25 January 2019.
  19. ^ AJC ehrt Marieluise Beck mit Demokratie-Preis American Jewish Committee (AJC), press release of 13 April 2016.
  20. ^ Röhling, Lisa-Maria (26 June 2017). "Abschiedsfeier für Marieluise Beck". WESER-KURIER (in German). Retrieved 3 August 2022.

External links